


between blinks and breaths

by twilighteve



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Horror, Supernatural - Freeform, au where louie can see the supernatural, but i'm tagging anyway just in case, idk if this count as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27841225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilighteve/pseuds/twilighteve
Summary: Louie sees spirits, in the corners of his vision and in the moment between inhales and exhales and in the split second of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it that keeps stacking up against each other. He hears whispers in the night and feels cold when it should be warm and warm when it should be cold and feels phantom sensation brushing against his fingers in the dead of the night. He gets secondhand feelings and half formed memories and wonders which are his and which are not.Or maybe he simply imagines it all and there is never a spirit, and it’s all in his head.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 72





	between blinks and breaths

Louie sees spirits, in the corners of his vision and in the moment between inhales and exhales and in the split second of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it that keeps stacking up against each other. He hears whispers in the night and feels cold when it should be warm and warm when it should be cold and feels phantom sensation brushing against his fingers in the dead of the night. He gets secondhand feelings and half formed memories and wonders which are his and which are not.

Or maybe he simply imagines it all and there is never a spirit, and it’s all in his head.

He’s used to it by now, after years and years of seeing – or maybe just imagining – the tail of a white dress and the ends of long dark hair disappearing from the edges of his vision and not being able to find anyone when he turns. After night after night in the dark when he can’t tell if his eyes are open or close and he sees – a silhouette too dark to discern with eyes too clear in the blackness, a figure too tall and too wide with hair too wild, fleeting shadows that refuse to still and taunting him and keeping him from falling asleep simply by being there – it all simply stopped being scary and started being tiring and annoying.

At this point he’s more or less sure that he sees actual spirits, but he could be wrong. Who knows. It’s not like anyone can say for sure.

He wonders sometimes if Huey and Dewey can see them too, or sense them in a way. Huey, skeptical and scientific as he is, keeps opening his guidebook to pages about the supernatural. There are times when Dewey runs to a direction and grinds to a stop, staying too still for a moment, and turns around and walks away as if nothing had happened. There are times when they collectively agree not to go somewhere without saying anything and stick together when they absolutely have to go. But he never asks and never seem to find the words to ask, so he never knows for sure.

* * *

He had seen many flitting shadows over the years, but there was one instance he could peg as his first, and it stuck with him for years. It was back when they were still living in Uncle Donald’s boathouse, in a cold night in the middle of summer.

He had heard whispers of a boating accident, and then the hushed news about a death. He didn’t pay much attention to it; he had other things to worry about, like the stupid history test or the algebra homework, or Huey twittering about his badge, or Dewey with his latest attempt to dive into the sea headfirst and gain fame in the neighborhood being thwarted by Uncle Donald’s keen watchful eyes yet again. He curled in the couch he’d claimed for himself and played with his phone and thought nothing of it. Uncle Donald went to the funeral, came home, and absent mindedly threw salt off his left shoulder.

He woke in the middle of the night at the day of the funeral. It only took a split second to realize he couldn’t move, and there was a figure standing by his bed. He couldn’t see the face, but he could see the dripping wet fishing gear he was wearing.

He squeezed his eyes shut, intensely aware of the coldness in his limbs and the ice in his fingers and toes and the heaviness that pressed him down. His breath hitched as he tried to move a finger, somehow.

He could _see_ the figure looming over him even through the closed eyes and panic and fear flooded him. He wanted the figure to go away, but he stayed there, looming, staring, still and silent and dripping water all over Uncle Donald’s boat.

His finger twitched, and his eyes snapped open with a gasp. The figure was gone and there was a rushing in his ears that he didn’t realize was there all along, which was beginning to still and quiet and let Huey’s mumbles and Dewey’s startled gasp come through.

“What, what’s happening?” Huey muttered.

“Ugh, why is it so cold?” Dewey complained.

Louie peered over his bed. The wooden floor was dry. He swallowed and breathed. “It’s nothing,” he said, grateful that his voice didn’t catch in his throat.

He didn’t sleep again that night.

* * *

He went on a school tour to a historical town, trudging to the town hall feeling weirdly drained and breathing deeply to get air into his lungs.

“This place feels weird,” he muttered, mostly to himself, but Huey and Dewey heard and stared at him.

“I mean, I guess? It’s kinda chilly considering the sun’s really high up,” Huey noted.

“Is it really just that?” Dewey asked. “I agree with Louie, this place feels weird, but I don’t know what.”

Louie looked around the town hall, seeing his classmates chattering and pointing, the teachers on charge directing them to the middle of the open square. He frowned. “I don’t know why but I thought this place would be a lot more crowded.”

Dewey blinked. “It… _feels_ crowded, though.”

“It feels a lot more crowded than it actually is,” Huey said.

Louie and Dewey both stared at him. The teacher called them to gather before they could say anything. They exchanged glances and went to crowd around the teacher along with their classmates, keeping their distance to make sure they still had space.

“So, here we are in the town hall,” the teacher said. “Anyone here wants to share their thoughts about this place?”

“It’s old!” a boy yelled.

“I read in a pamphlet that they used to gather here a lot,” another boy added.

“I read in a _book_ that they used to gather to watch people get hung,” a girl said in a tone that clearly suggested that she was showing off.

The teacher stared. “Well, someone did their research,” she commented. “Yes, they used to have public execution by hanging here. But we don’t do that anymore!”

The pieces slotted into place. Louie breathed, buried his hands into his hoodie, and soldiered his way through the study tour. When they got back home he slept off the exhaustion and noted with disdain how the fatigue lingered for days.

* * *

Louie didn’t understand why he didn’t feel well.

He had been paying attention to what he ate – he had no choice on that given that Huey went on a healthy food spree, basically, and Uncle Donald was more than willing to indulge. Their diet had been really balanced as of late. And he had enough sleep, so that couldn’t be it either. Judging from the way Dewey kept uncomfortably rolling his shoulders, he probably felt the same way. Absently, he wondered how Huey was doing since it was his Junior Woodchuck Camping Night.

Uncle Donald walked closer to him and placed a hand on his forehead, and he leaned into the touch. He heard the frown in Uncle Donald’s voice when he said, “You’re warm.” Then, after he pulled away and checked Dewey’s temperature, he said again, “You’re warm, too. You both get to bed, I’ll make some soup for you.”

“We’re fine,” Dewey protested.

“No you’re not. You have a slight fever,” Uncle Donald said as he herded them to their room. “I’m going to call the person in charge of Huey’s camping night, so you should go to sleep, okay? I’ll wake you when the soup’s done.”

Huey ended up getting driven home by one of the Senior Woodchucks, burning up with a fever, apparently having fallen into a stream and walking around in the woods in wet clothes. It took them the same amount of time to recover back to full health, despite Huey’s fever burning a lot hotter than theirs.

* * *

Uncle Donald woke them up for school, and Huey trudged to the bathroom basically immediately, like the good nerd he was. Dewey groaned and woke next, catching up to Huey and elbowing him to make some room to brush their teeth, like usual. Louie stayed curled up in bed because he was still sleepy and he wanted to steal some more sleep.

He fell asleep again and Uncle Donald woke him frantically about fifteen minutes before the bus arrived, and he stormed through the morning routine and ran to the bus stop with Huey and Dewey. They didn’t miss the bus, thank everything for that, but their mood for the day was officially ruined.

“Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?” Louie asked when they were back from school.

“I thought you were already in the bathroom,” Uncle Donald answered. “I could’ve sworn you were already walking there.”

“…but I was still sleeping,” Louie said, trying to ignore the shivers that climbed up his spine and hating the small tremor that found its way to his voice.

“Yeah, I should have checked,” Uncle Donald grumbled. He sighed and looked out of the window, then snorted. “It reminds me of a few days ago, actually. I thought I saw a boy wearing yellow playing by himself on the deck. I thought one of you were there, but then I remembered none of you wear yellow.” He laughed.

Louie followed Uncle Donald’s gaze and gave a half-hearted laugh of his own. “Yeah, we don’t wear yellow,” he said, soft.

* * *

Louie walked into the classroom, content after eating lunch and didn’t really want to study but knowing he had to come early in order to get a good seat. A classmate glanced at him, did a double take, and turned to the seat behind him, the one Louie usually took.

“Weren’t you already here?” he asked. “I saw you sitting here. You’re already browsing Twitter or whatever.”

Louie took his seat. “I was eating lunch, though? You sure it wasn’t Huey or Dewey?”

“Dude, would they even _want_ to do something like that?”

“Eh, probably not.”

“I swear to everything I saw you here already. You didn’t go out and then go in again?”

“No.” Louie groaned and folded his arms on the table, letting his chin rest on them.

The classmate kept glancing at him and stealing looks every time he thought Louie wasn’t looking for the next few days. It was a relief when he stopped.

* * *

The manor atop of the hill was warm and welcoming and Louie wondered why it felt like coming home into the embrace of a family member he never knew when he had never visited it in his life. He could believe Scrooge McDuck being an estranged family member. Despite everything, he could see Scrooge in Uncle Donald and Uncle Donald in Scrooge, both in the most subtle ways possible.

He stepped into the manor and felt _welcomed_ in a way he never felt in any old building ever. Old buildings stepped back and watched you and surrounded you in cold and haughty superiority, but this one opened its arms and gathered Louie in its hold and kissed his cheeks, like grandmothers greeting their most precious grandchildren when they visit after a whole school year. He settled into its folds with the ease of finding his own eyes and beak in the darkness of the night.

He wandered the halls and the rooms and let himself roam the unused wings, his brothers with him and Webby leading the way, practically giving them a tour of a home she’d been living in her whole life. They strayed into a room with white bedsheet and sky blue curtains and model planes and rows of aviator goggles.

“Oh, this is Della Duck’s room,” Webby said. “It’s basically unused but Granny still cleans it at least twice a week.”

“This is Mom’s room?” Dewey murmured, walking around and running his fingers lightly against the writing table. He picked a pencil off the mug filled with writing utensils, box cutters, and scissors, studying it under keen eyes.

Louie inhaled, letting the faint smell of mothballs and freshly washed linen fill his nose. There was loneliness in this room that left a chill at his fingertips and a longing for something he never had. He could almost see it, his mother in this room, surrounded by things that made Della Duck, Della Duck – the sky that they could see clearly over the open window, the model planes, the aviator goggles. This room should have smelled of the wind and the sun and yet the mothballs took its place and refused to go away.

The warmth of the manor seemed to dissipate in this room, and Louie wondered if it, too, felt the loss of Della’s presence the same way Scrooge did, the same way Uncle Donald did. He wondered if it felt it the same way he felt and why he felt the loss of something he never had in the first place.

* * *

There’s something in the woods surrounding the manor. It scurries closer to the windows when the sun goes down at keeps circling the outer walls until the sun peeks in the horizon.

The first time Louie caught a glimpse of – _it?_ – the _thing_ peeked into the room he and his brothers occupied. It’s eye alone covered the whole window, and the rest of its body was nothing but a shadowy blackness that Louie couldn’t discern. It disappeared the moment Louie blinked, and there was a part of him that wondered if he had imagined it all, but another part was fully convinced it was still there, lurking, watching Louie trying to figure out what it was.

Louie snuggled into his blanket and closed his eyes, pretending that nothing had happened, convinced that it would leave him alone if he paid it no attention.

* * *

It kept bothering Louie.

He saw shadows flitting at the stairs, a silhouette with wide eyes peeking from behind the wall, a figure crouching atop the staircase, peeking from the gaps between the curtain and the window. Louie couldn’t be sure if it was the same as the gigantic figure he saw, but something told him it was.

He kept ignoring it all, until it culminated in him waking up in the middle of the night, _knowing_ there was _something_ standing outside the window, peering in, floating in midair to look into their room in the tower. He snuggled into the blanket and refused to look outside the window. It disappeared sometime with the coming dawn.

Huey broke the heavy silence during breakfast, poking at his toast, then asking, “Uncle Scrooge?”

Uncle Scrooge hummed, then looked up from his newspaper. “What is it, lad?”

Huey fidgeted, glanced at Dewey and Louie guiltily, and asked, “Can we move rooms?”

Uncle Scrooge stared at him, then at Dewey, then at Louie, and asked, “Have you three talked about this?”

“No,” Louie answered honestly, “but I’d also like to move rooms.”

“Same,” Dewey agreed easily. It was a testament of how tired he was that he didn’t bother saying anything else.

Uncle Scrooge stared again, and then shrugged. “Alright. There’s a lot of empty rooms in the manor. Mrs. Beakley will help you with it.”

They ended up moving to a room near Uncle Donald’s old, now unused room and Mom’s long empty one.

The figures stopped bothering them.

* * *

Louie scrubbed the plates clean and grumbled under his breath. This was Mrs. Beakley’s day off, so they had to do chores, and Louie was left with having to deal with the dirty dishes. Because of course Uncle Scrooge didn’t have a dishwasher.

“Doing it by hand is cleaner,” Louie muttered mockingly. “Of course he’s too stingy to buy a good dishwasher.”

He scrubbed, and rinsed, and the piles of plates and glasses and cups was finally put away to the drying rack. He was in the middle of rinsing the last few plates when he saw a girl walking off from the corner of his vision.

“Webby, can you check if there’s anything left on the table?” he asked without thinking about it. There was no answer, but he saw the tail of a dress disappear into the next room.

He turned with a scowl, Webby’s name at the tip of his tongue, just in time to see Webby walk in through the other door in the kitchen. He blinked at her, the name dying at his beak, and Webby lifted a brow at him.

“What?” she asked.

He shook himself off and turned back to finish the dishes. “Nah, I just thought I saw something,” he said vaguely, noting how Webby hummed and shrugged, taking the piles of clean dishes and helping him store them properly.

Belatedly, Louie realized the girl he saw was too tall to be Webby, the hair too dark and too long, the dress too white.

* * *

He was home alone, with Uncle Scrooge flying off to some business trip that was actually a business trip and not an expedition for once, and Huey going on a Junior Woodchuck camping trip, and Dewey having a sleepover at Launchpad’s so they could marathon Darkwing Duck for the umpteenth time.

Okay, technically Webby and Mrs. Beakley were with him in the manor, and Uncle Donald was having a date at the boathouse, but with a manor as big as Uncle Scrooge’s it basically felt like Louie was home alone so it counted.

He was making a microwave mug cake for a midnight snack when he saw a glimpse of Uncle Donald making his way into the living room, and he wondered why he didn’t greet him like usual. The microwave dinged and he took out the cake, and he followed Uncle Donald into the living room.

He wasn’t doing anything. He was just sitting at the sofa, his back to Louie, holding his phone and scrolling, scrolling, scrolling without minding much else. The TV was off. Something about it all felt off in the slightest way possible, and it made something in Louie’s stomach churn. He opened his mouth to call Uncle Donald and ask what he was doing, but he stopped himself in the last second.

He was suddenly overcome with the certainty that _this was not Uncle Donald_.

He swallowed and turned around, walking away as quickly as quietly as he could. The moment he reached his room, the electricity died, and he was surrounded in a blanket of darkness and there wasn’t much he could do to stop the scream at his mouth. He gripped his mug as hard as he could and would later realize how hot the ceramic was.

Louie took a deep breath and took out his phone, using the flashlight function to allow himself to see. He put the mug cake on the table and went out again.

He met Webby and Mrs. Beakley at the living room, and Mrs. Beakley led them to the basement where the fuse box was located, quickly fixing it and testing the light at the basement to make sure the electricity was alright.

“It looks like some switches were flipped,” Mrs. Beakley noted as they walked back upstairs. “But I know no one was here, so it probably switched by itself. It does that, sometimes. Old house and all that.”

They met Uncle Donald at the top of the stairs, Daisy at his side. “What happened to the lights?” Uncle Donald asked.

“We don’t know for sure, but it’s fixed now,” Mrs. Beakley answered lightly.

Uncle Donald sighed and turned to Daisy. “Sorry about that. We can go back to the boat if you want.”

“Sure,” Daisy answered with a smile. “We still have dinner to go through, after all.”

Louie stared. “Uncle Donald, have you been with Daisy this whole time?”

“Well, yeah,” Uncle Donald answered. “I didn’t go into the manor until the electricity went down.”

Louie let out a breath as he felt coldness climbing his spine. “Oh,” he said, not knowing what to say. Belatedly, he realized what had been so off with the lookalike; the phone screen he was thumbing and scrolling at was a blank white, and he had no reflection in the glass screen of the TV.

Webby placed a hand on his shoulder and he jumped. She smiled reassuringly anyway and asked, “Do you want me to accompany you? You don’t look great.”

“Yeah, I – I was probably just surprised with the electricity suddenly dying, but I don’t mind company,” Louie said hurriedly. “I have a mug cake in my room if you want some.”

“Oooh, mug cake! Yes, please!”

Louie discreetly checked the CCTV feed the next day, looking for an Uncle Donald lookalike that had managed to worm his way into the manor. He found nothing, just as he had expected. As he closed the video player program, he wondered what would have happened if he had called and greeted the Uncle Donald lookalike.

He wondered if he would have a face at all.

* * *

He woke in the middle of the night. It only took a split second to realize he couldn’t move, and there was a figure standing by his bed. The presence felt distinctly female in a way he couldn’t explain, and it felt curious, and it peered at him as if trying to figure out what made him tick.

Somehow, he managed to find the strength to move his beak. The moment it opened to speak, he found himself moving, sloppily slashing his arm through the air.

“Go away,” he wanted to yell, but it came out as slurred mumble that was partly a whisper and partly a grumble.

The presence seemed to take a step back in surprise and vanished. Immediately, Louie found himself breathing and moving easier. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

* * *

There was something off about the empty building they were visiting, and Louie couldn’t tell what exactly, but he’d known enough by now that it was probably some sort of shadowy figure that kept disappearing when he tried to take a better look at them.

“I’m thinking about buying this and turning it into a resort,” Uncle Scrooge said. “It’s far enough from town that there’s no city noise and you still get the view of the sea! It’s perfect!”

“It’s… a little run down,” Huey noted.

“That’s okay, Uncle Scrooge hired me to do repairs and handle the renovations,” Uncle Donald said.

“We’ll turn this place into a five star hotel,” Uncle Scrooge declared proudly. “What do you think?”

Huey opened his guidebook and squinted at it. “It’s… grand? It’s nice. Very Greco-Roman.”

Dewey looked around, stopping to look more closely at one of the rooms at the second floor, which door was wide open. He blinked and looked away, turning his attention to Uncle Scrooge. “Why here, Uncle Scrooge? Why this place?”

“I already said it’s far enough from the city that you don’t get the noise!” Uncle Scrooge answered. “And it’s still close enough that people can come here without having to take a long drive. And I got it for dirt cheap!”

Ah, yes, the dirt cheap part explained everything. “So you’re planning to renovate this into a super cool hotel, got it,” Louie said as he walked around. “You should build a swimming pool overlooking the sea, that’s a really great selling point – “ he stopped, looking up at the railing.

There was a woman up there, glaring at them. Louie couldn’t make up her features other than the long hair and the white dress and the sharp eyes that seemed to suck him in, silently glaring and judging and filling him with a sense of hate and anger and _you’re not welcome here, go away_.

“Louie?”

He snapped back to the present. “Huh? Oh, yeah, great selling point, people love swimming pools overlooking the sea,” he said, glancing back at he railing. There was no one there.

“But this place is great! It’s spacious, and big, and it’s already really grand,” Webby said. She took out her phone and started recording, spinning in place so the camera could take a footage of each nook and cranny. “I think you can use this room as the main lobby, Uncle Scrooge. Oooh, maybe you can put a fountain here!”

“Excellent idea! Write it down, Webbigail, we’ll need more excellent ideas to fix this place.” Uncle Scrooge walked deeper into the building. Webby chirped an okay as she saved the video while Uncle Donald trailed after Uncle Scrooge, asking about the budget Uncle Scrooge was willing to fork over for the renovation project.

“Hey, Webs, can I see that video you took just now?” Dewey scooted closer to Webby.

“Sure,” Webby agreed lightly, handing the phone over. “I’m gonna go join Uncle Scrooge. Give me back my phone later!”

Louie looked over Dewey’s shoulder when he opened Webby’s gallery to access the video, resting his chin on Dewey. Huey peered over, too, putting his guidebook away.

The video showed exactly what Louie expected. The camera somehow managed to catch the light well enough to show the interior of the dim building, and it panned around as Webby’s recorded voice wafted out of the speaker, tinny. Just as the camera panned over the stairwell, Dewey stiffened and hit pause.

For a split second, Louie caught the impression of a man – of _something_ that was not a person and was never a person that took shape of a man with unruly hair – standing at the stairwell, as if blocking the path of anyone who tried to go up. Its eyes blazed as it grinned too wide, as if daring for anyone to come closer so he could take a bite. When he blinked, the stairwell in the video was as empty as it seemed in real life.

Dewey closed the video player app and pocketed the phone. “I don’t want to go upstairs,” he said, voice unexpectedly calm.

“Me neither,” Huey said faintly.

“Yeah,” Louie agreed. “Let’s go find Uncle Scrooge.”

They met up with Uncle Scrooge, Uncle Donald, and Webby in the kitchen, just as Uncle Scrooge declared that he would rake in a fortune from the building. Louie didn’t want to point fingers or say something bad, but he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the resort didn’t generate as much money as Uncle Scrooge seemed to hope it would bring.

* * *

Uncle Donald sat with them when they decided to visit him in the houseboat, just for old times’ sake. He handed glasses of lemonade to them, the ice in it clinking softly against each other, the soft fragrance of mint exuding off the liquid.

“You know,” Uncle Donald said, “when your grandmother died, I was with your mom on some expedition with Uncle Scrooge. I had a dream where I met her that night.”

“Oh, cool,” Dewey responded, looking at him with open interest that he rarely spared for Uncle Donald. Years of living together with him had made them believe he was the boring uncle who was the stickler for rules and regulations and Uncle Scrooge was the awesome one despite evidence of the contrary.

“Yeah, uh.” Uncle Donald brought his drink to his beak, stopped, and put it down again. They waited for him to gather his thoughts, and when he did, he looked on to the distance as if lost in memories. “I had a dream we were in our old living room. She was asking me about the expedition while she knitted a sweater. Then she put it down and told me to take care of Della and to be safe.” He took in a deep breath and fell silent. He sipped on his drink and smiled at them. “So that’s that. But then Della took that ship, so I kind of couldn’t do what she asked me.”

Huey skirted around the issue of their mom. He never did like seeing Uncle Donald forcing a smile like that, as if Mom disappearing wasn’t a big deal for him. Instead, he asked, “Did you ever dream of meeting her again?”

Uncle Donald hummed in thought. “Not really. She appears sometimes in my dream but I don’t think any of them are significant. She mostly asks for updates.” He snorted. “Except for that one time when she told me to take better care of her and Dad’s grave.”

Louie sipped his lemonade. “Does that happen a lot?” he asked. “You dreaming things like that?”

Uncle Donald shrugged. “Once in a while. Your mom never gets any of that.”

“I wonder if Uncle Scrooge gets them,” Huey muttered.

Dewey laughed. “Uncle Scrooge wouldn’t believe any of them even if he does.”

* * *

Louie woke in the middle of the night, knowing immediately there were presences in the room other than his brothers’.

He scowled. “Get out of here, you little shits,” he grumbled. “I’m trying to sleep here.”

The presences vanished, seemingly surprised Louie even bothered to tell them off. There wasn’t anything in the room other than Huey’s sleepy mumbles and Dewey’s soft snore.

Louie curled and went back to sleep.

* * *

Louie sees spirits, in the corners of his vision and in the moment between inhales and exhales and in the split second of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it that keeps stacking up against each other. He hears whispers in the night and feels cold when it should be warm and warm when it should be cold and feels phantom sensation brushing against his fingers in the dead of the night. He gets secondhand feelings and half formed memories and wonders which are his and which are not.

He's learned to cope with it by now, and he has the inkling that it’s a family thing, if Uncle Donald’s dreams were anything to go by. It’s a part of him, just like his love for Pep and riches are a part of him, and he has no intention to part with any of that.

**Author's Note:**

> the snippets written here are basically things i've experienced over the years appropriated to fit the triplets. except the part where donald dreams of meeting hortense; that's my mom's experience when my grandfather died way before i was born. this fic is basically shameless self projecting through and through.  
> also this is barely edited so if you catch typos and stuff, uh, sorry??


End file.
